David and Jin were members of Diane’s crime scene crew. Jin was in his twenties, half-Asian, and came from New York, where he’d been a criminalist. David had worked with her at World Accord International when the two of them were human rights investigators. Neva, a former police officer, came to her from the Rosewood Police Department. The three of them made up Diane’s crime scene unit. But David and Jin weren’t cavers, and Diane didn’t want them inside a rugged cave like this one.
Mike began his ascent, easily climbing the rope hand over hand. When he cleared the top, he and Neva exchanged a few quiet words, and then she started down the rope.
Diane had been surprised that Neva wanted to take up caving again after her true near-death experience in this very cave system. Being wedged in a crevasse between rocks, with gravity pulling her ever tighter into the squeeze, had been a frightening experience. But Neva showed a remarkable determination to get over the trauma. She was wide-eyed and pale the first few times back in a cave, but she stuck with it. Diane wondered if it was as much for Mike as for caves.
“What’s up?” Neva looked up at the opening until the light disappeared with Mike down the tunnel. She grinned, and Diane watched her face change as she turned her head and spotted the remains.
“My God, that’s not anyone we know. .?”
“No. This guy’s been here a very long time.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I can’t see enough of his bones to tell, but I’d bet he broke a limb, probably a leg. Looks like he was a caver. Has a helmet with a carbide lamp, a canteen, and I just noticed a backpack sticking out from under him. But I haven’t seen any rope. I don’t know of any caver who would venture this far into a cave without rope.”
“Novice?” Neva said, squatting to look at the mummy and his artifacts.
“Maybe, but novices usually bring rope-sometimes not enough of it, but they usually have it.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“We can’t touch the body until the coroner arrives, but we can do a grid search of the floor.”
“What about the breakdown?”
“We’ll get Mike to help with some of it.”
“You’re kidding. You’re going to look under the rocks?”
Diane surveyed the piles of rocks on the floor. “We’re not going to move them all, but I’d like to see if anything is under the rocks that just fell. You take that end; I’ll start at the wall with the opening.” She gestured toward the hole in the opposite wall. “We’ll meet in the middle.”
Diane and Neva made their way to opposite sides of the room, but instead of searching the floor, Diane looked up at the opening in the wall.
“I think he fell from here,” she said. Her words reverberated across the cavern. She doubted Neva could make out what she’d said. Diane waved her away when she saw Neva’s headlamp turn in her direction.
Diane rubbed a hand over the rough texture of the wall. It was about twenty feet to the opening, not a bad climb. She examined the wall, mentally noting hand-and footholds. Piece of cake, like climbing a ladder. She keyed her radio. “Neva, I’m going up top to the opening here. You can continue searching the floor, or wait for me, whichever you prefer.”
Diane pulled her chalk bag from her pants pocket, dusted her hands and felt for the first two holds-a crack in the rock face in which she slipped the fingers of her right hand, and a protrusion she grabbed with the other. She proceeded up the face of the cliff, making sure every handhold and foothold was stable before she moved to the next, always using her hands for balance and her legs to push upward.
Diane liked solo climbing. She enjoyed being free of the ropes, but she always brought a climbing harness just in case she came across something really deep and interesting in the cave.
When she reached the opening, she pulled herself over the bottom edge, stood up in the newfound tunnel and viewed the cavern from this new vantage point. The scene was beautiful. Illuminated by her headlamps, the varied hues of red, orange, ivory and silver rock had a golden glow. The icy-looking stalactites and stalagmites with their pointed peaks and knobby textures looked like spires from some Middle Earth kingdom. Diane found the unearthly appearance ironic-nothing was more of the earth than a cave.
She turned her attention to details of the tunnel. Her first thought on examining the rock face she’d just climbed was that Caver Doe, as she dubbed him in her mind, had fallen the twenty feet from this tunnel to the cavern floor. The rock wall had a concave dip in it under the entrance, so that if he had been walking down this passage without paying attention, he would have run out of floor before he ran out of sides. From this vantage point at the top, that seemed a viable hypothesis.
There was little breakdown on the floor of the tunnel near the opening. Nothing to trip over. As she studied the walls, she saw something angular jutting from the rock near the bottom of the wall. It wasn’t rock. She knelt and examined the object-a railroad spike. Its presence puzzled her for a moment; then she realized that it might have been a crude anchor bolt, used to secure a rope. Caver Doe’s equipment was old, predating all the modern gear that she had.
Several inches above the spike she discovered a gash in the stone wall. She put a hand in the gouged-out place, poking around in the hole, feeling its shape. In the middle of the gash was a smaller hole. Interesting.
A new hypothesis formed in her mind. Caver Doe had set his railroad spike in the top hole, tied his rope to it, and started over the edge. The spike had pulled out of the wall when he put his full weight on it-causing him to fall. If they found a railroad spike on the floor of the cavern, that would support her idea.
But what of the spike that was set-his caving partner? Surely he hadn’t been caving alone. Then. . why wasn’t he rescued?
Chapter 3
Diane pondered various hypotheses of how Caver Doe might have come to his end, turning the ideas over in her mind, trying them out in various scenarios. She knew it was pointless at the moment, since she had not examined the remains, but she couldn’t help herself.
She turned away from the chamber and faced the other end of the tunnel. The terminal height of the passage at the point it opened into the cavern measured fifteen feet, and the width was about twenty-five feet. The walls, a light tan streaked with many hues of brown, were patterned with large scallops, some nearly a foot in length, and dug into the stone with such repetition and consistency they looked almost man-made.
The limestone rock made of calcium derived from skeleta, shells, and the secretions of a host of marine life was literally the bones of the earth. She rubbed her fingers over the rock surface-a surface seemingly too hard to have dissolved in a little acidic groundwater. But it had, and that was the wonder of it. Slow-moving, slightly acidic water long ago in the time before man had dissolved this sinuous passage through the limestone. Diane raised a bare hand above her head and paused. There was no air movement.
She decided to follow the tunnel, even though she was without a caving companion for the moment. If she stayed on the main path, taking no detours, entering no mazes, it would be all right.
Adrenaline still electrified her body from her near fall. She was hyperalert as she walked, stepping over the rubble that littered the silt floor, examining the pathway, the ceiling.
At the first gentle curve in the tunnel she stopped and looked back, viewing where she had just traversed. It was a habit she’d developed so she could always recognize passages from any direction-a safeguard against becoming hopelessly lost and having to be rescued.
Diane knew she probably should go back while she could still see the glow from the chamber dimly illuminated by Neva’s light. When she rounded the bend the chamber would be out of sight. Was she going to be cautious or adventurous? She compromised and called Neva on the walkie-talkie.
“I’m going to follow this tunnel.”
“Should you be doing that alone?” said Neva.
Diane had drilled into Neva n
ever to cave alone or go off alone, at least not for any great distance.
“I’m only going to the end of the tunnel. Not any farther. You stay in the chamber. Don’t go anywhere until Mike and MacGregor get back. And keep in touch.”
“Will do.”
She shined her light on the curve of another bend just ahead. She pointed her distometer and measured the distance-16.3 feet. It was indeed promising to be a long, sinuous tunnel.
On the floor of the winding passage she found no objects that might have been dropped by Caver Doe. Nothing. Not even footprints. That seemed odd. Even with the years of dust settling in the cave, there should be some ghost of a footprint left. Perhaps all traces of his passing had been covered by the breakdown. In many spots it was like gravel. She looked back where she had just come. Her footprints on the silt were actually very light, and in some places where the bedrock showed through the silt floor, there were none. Okay, maybe the absence of evidence of his passing was not odd, but interesting.
What was it Mike had told her about meanders? Flowing water left a greater amount of silt on the inside of bends where it slowed down. She squatted down at the turn in the bend and examined the heavy layer of silt. No footprints, but there were wavy smears and striations, as if someone had dragged or wiped something over the surface. The markings in the silt were so slight that they might have simply been products of her imagination-seeing evidence where there was none. She took her camera from a pocket on her pack and snapped a picture of it anyway.
She stood up and was about to continue on when her light caught the reflection of something in a slit between two large rocks. She squatted to examine the sparkle. It was silver, tiny, and had the smooth, rounded, shiny look of something man-made. She moved some of the silt from around it, revealing a thick wire loop-looking object. She grasped it between her thumb and index finger. It shifted slightly, but was stuck. Must be attached to something bigger and held in place by the rocks, she thought.
Diane dug between the rocks with her finger and felt a rounded edge. A button? Caught between the rocks when someone was wiping footprints from the surface of the silt? Or was her imagination making a mystery out of a simple caving accident?
Her digging had partially freed it. If she could just turn the object sideways she could get it out. Her fingernail caught it and swiveled it around on its edge. Diane grasped it and pulled it out, trying not to touch anything but the edges.
It was a button. Metallic-silver with the letters A.S.C. over an eagle with spread wings. Military button? On the reverse side was a thick wire shank-the part that Diane had first caught sight of. She laid the button on top of a rock near its original location, photographed it, made notations in her notebook of the spot where she had found it, and stuffed the camera and notebook back in her pack.
Diane searched her pockets for something suitable to put the button in and came up with a Ziploc bag. She sealed it so that enough air remained inside to reduce contact with the button, though it probably wouldn’t matter anyway. The passage of time and the conditions had most likely resulted in the destruction of anything that might have been clinging to the surface of the button. But you never knew. She put it in the backpack and proceeded down the tunnel.
She stopped at the next bend and examined the silt and found no other marks in the dirt.
“Dr. Fallon.” The radio squawked a string of static syllables.
“Neva?”
“Just checking in. I found a railroad spike.” Even with the static, Diane could hear the puzzlement in Neva’s voice.
“That’s great. Mark the place where you found it.”
“Sure thing. Out.”
Diane followed the tunnel, watching the floor, the walls, the ceiling. It was like a gently waving avenue, not too cluttered, big enough to drive a car through with room to spare. The light shining off the uneven, rippling walls, and the distant outline of the oval cross-section, made the passage look like a vortex funneling her to some mysterious destination. It was a close call, but at this moment the mysteries of the cave held more allure to her than the remains back in the chamber. She wished that her caving partners were here so she wouldn’t have to stop when the tunnel ended.
Just ahead a pile of breakdown with rocks the size of boulders littered the way. Beside the pile she found another passage, a side branch. The entrance was small; she would have to duck to get through it. From her vantage she could see that it sloped steeply upward and the passageway was strewn with large boulders-negotiable, but they didn’t look stable. She scanned the walls around the entryway. Above the opening, almost at eye level, she saw a smudge. It was so faint she almost missed it, but it was definitely an X.
Smiling to herself, she grabbed her camera from the pack and snapped a picture. This was confirmation of her expectation that previous explorers, perhaps Caver Doe, had marked their path. In her notepad she made sketches and drew an X to mark the spot. This would definitely go on their caving itinerary. She was willing to bet this new tunnel led to another entrance aboveground. She didn’t remember Mike or any members of her caving club mentioning other caves or entrances in the area. She grinned. New discoveries were what cavers lived for. Returning her notebook and camera to their backpack pockets, she squatted to examine the floor around the opening for artifacts.
Other than the mark on the wall, it looked as if no one had ever been there. She stood up and continued down the main passage. It was an easy traverse, and she wasn’t taking any detours, so she decided to see where the tunnel ended. She picked her way around the jumble of rocks at the side tunnel’s entrance and then walked down the path toward the next bend in this ghost river. She tried to imagine the water flowing through here aeons ago. The image in her mind would make a good visual display for the museum, she thought. She wondered if she could get footage of an underwater river for the video terminals at the museum geology exhibit.
Around the curve the tunnel forked. Diane felt a vague disappointment that her solo exploration was ended, but she’d already decided that she would stop when she got to the end of the main tunnel. She wished that caves weren’t so dangerous, because she loved to explore them alone.
She examined the walls around the irregular entrances of the fork. No marks. Nothing. The larger of the two passages slanted upward. She shined her headlamps just inside. The walls were close together and, like the first offshoot passage, it was littered with large boulders.
The other tunnel was even smaller, almost a squeeze. She would fit, but she would have to go sideways. Diane leaned inside just enough to see around a rock that partially blocked the way. The passage slanted downward at a steep angle. She had the impression it was twisted around like a corkscrew. She stopped for a moment, holding her breath. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard a sound, like white noise or flowing water. The sound was just at the edge of her hearing, like a whisper she wasn’t sure she even heard.
The temptation to follow was almost more than she could resist-just a little way down the tunnel, she could always turn back and still find her way-but Diane ducked out of the entrance before the siren call became too tempting.
She took another look around the two branch tunnels and snapped a picture before she started back toward the chamber.
Returning to the chamber through the tunnel was faster, since she knew the route and the lay of the rocks. As she rounded the last bend back, she saw a light from a helmet. For a moment she thought Neva had climbed up the wall, and Diane was about to chastise her-Neva was new to caving and Diane had warned her never to go it alone. But here Diane herself was-alone. She smiled inwardly.
When the figure grew closer she saw it was Mike. He had a deep crease between his brows, and with the light and shadows on his face, it was hard to read his expression.
“Are you all right?” His words sounded tight. “I was surprised to find you had gone off by yourself.”
Diane was a little startled at his level of concern. “No farther than we’ve s
trayed many times. I stuck to this main tunnel.”
She started to say something more, but realized that he was worried. It was disturbing to witness an accident, and though her fall had turned out all right, she could have been seriously injured. Mike was as shaken by it as she.
“I’m fine, really.”
His face split into a smile. “Yeah, I would’ve done the same thing.”
“Did you find the coroner?”
He nodded. “The entrance to the cave is in Hall County, but according to the mapping we’ve done so far, it turns out the chamber containing the body is across the county line in Lumpkin County. The Lumpkin County coroner is a man named Brewster Pilgrim. Great name, huh? He said that he ‘would not dream of interfering with a cosmos that allowed a forensic anthropologist caver to discover human bones in a cave’ and that you should ‘have at it.’ Just send him the paperwork.”
Diane laughed and realized just how tense she still was from the mishap. She’d forced it out of her mind, made light of the seriousness of it, but her muscles remembered, and the relief of laughing brought a dull ache to her head. She absently rubbed her temple.
“I’ve got some aspirin,” said Mike.
“I’m fine, really.”
“The coroner’s sending a deputy to make it official. I got hold of Jin,” said Mike. “He’s bringing what you need from the crime lab. MacGregor’s waiting outside the cave for him. I’ll go back up and get your equipment when it arrives.”
“Good job. I’ll have to start paying you out of the crime lab budget before long.” They stood looking at each other, their headlamps making a pool of light surrounding them. “How is Neva doing?” asked Diane after a pause.
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